I have lit myself on fire (I'm in a Darwin Awards book), been on stage with Penn & Teller, TV with Super Dave Osborne, scored at Maple Leaf Gardens, "sold" music to Kevin Smith, been in a commercial, and appeared homeless in a rap video. I'm a huge fan of golf, hockey, science, the Oxford comma, and equality. I currently write, create, and eat snacks.

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April 01, 2013

The Big Reveal

Well the guesses are in and we have a winner!

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to have a read and congratulations to Stephanie Fuller for correctly picking out which one of these was a complete and total lie. Stephanie, just send me an email with the pictures you want (up to 10) from Andrew's Alphabet and I'll get them to you right away.

Of course, because I'm sneaky (or just a jerk - you decide) I've decided not to directly reveal which answer is bunk. Instead, I've made all the choices clickable and upon doing so, the choice will expand to reveal a brief story about the item. The false one will be appropriately labelled (and in red text).

Of course, if you want to just go back to the original post and check to see which one Stephanie picked you can do that too :)

Anyone paying attention to my blog will see a category called "Fact About Me". If you peruse these posts you'll see a few of the items in this list. Including a picture of me scoring at Maple Leaf Gardens along with the score sheet from the game.

Another fabulous "Fact About Me" that you can find here. I went with a friend to the show and we were up in the balcony. At the intermission we were wandering around and Penn was wandering around as well. I walked right up to him and he just looked right at me and said "How would you like to give me a hand?" I ended up on stage with a handful of other guests while they did the trick. After the show they were out on the sidewalk signing autographs.

TSN used to have a website feature called "Couchmaster". I used to contribute comments and the occasional "Question of the Day" and got along fairly well with Couch himself. When the company axed the feature Couch moved to his own site (I'm "The Boutros" in the comments if you click that link) and found himself working for a video game company called ZAPiT Games. They were making a home trivia game kind of like the stuff you'd find at a bar, only this one was a bit more media rich with pictures and video. Couch called me up and asked me if I'd like to write trivia questions (and answers) for the game. Seemed like a cool idea, so I did it. I even think a couple of mine made it in.

Super Dave Osborne used to shoot the studio portions of his show at the Markham Theatre and a friend of mine (the same one of Penn & Teller fame) would get tickets every year. One day, he had a bunch of "Take it away Mike Walden" throws to do and I got picked. After several takes (I was nervous) we settled on some chit chat and I said the words that would make me famous. You can also find this on my blog as a "Fact About Me" :)

In my second year of university I was at the campus pub drowning my sorrows after a particularly poor performance writing an exam. This was a good 6 or 7 years after my big television debut. Apparently the episode had aired on a late night station the night before and one of the other bar patrons had seen it when pulling an all nighter before his exam. He ran up to me at the bar and started yelling, "Hey, you're the 'take it away Mike Walden' guy!" I was his hero for the rest of the night. He and his friends made sure I drank for free.

It's true. They never told me which episode I would appear in - if any. This was before the digital age and recording every episode wasn't possible. Further to that, it may have aired only in the U.S. (on Showtime). Turns out though, that once the digital age took hold this would prove beneficial. In a weird twist of fate, someone who knew Super Dave's archivist saw my plea for the show, called in a favour, and found it for me - 20 years after it was shot.

Every year in Lake Placid New York there's a CanAm cup hockey tournament. As part of this, all the teams get to play in the same rinks that were used at the Olympics. Our team, the Thornhill Islanders, won the silver in 1987 and then went on to win the gold the next year.

I'm in Book III on page 126. After submitting my personal account to the Darwin Awards website I got an email from Darwin herself telling me that my anecdote had been voted one of the top 20 in its category. She asked me if she could use it in her upcoming compilation, to which I wholeheartedly agreed.

Yup. In the first printing hardcover they credited me as "Andrew Butler". This is apparently a big deal (improperly crediting a source and whatnot) so they stopped the press and the name was changed for subsequent printings. Darwin sent me a t-shirt for my troubles.

In the summer of 1992 I travelled with my girlfriend at the time to visit her father, who was living in London for a couple years for business. We did a few touristy things in London (pub crawl, Hard Rock Cafe, Madame Tussaud's, and a couple outings to the theatre. We also travelled to the country and stopped in at Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill. We took a tour and stood in the room where he was born.

Winner winner chicken dinner! This one is the lie. I have driven past the Canadian embassy in both London England and Paris France, but that's about as exciting as it gets. I would hope that the Winston Churchill truth would lend credibility to this one. Fooled everyone but Stephanie!

More info here: http://orangekaren.wordpress.com Hopefully you've read my blog, seen my tweets, or happened upon my Facebook author page and seen this. On April 11th, the book comes out and I'm very proud to say I'll be a part of it. Get it here!

So this guy I went to high school with happens to produce music videos and movies and such things. He's also a pretty amazing artist. His name is Harv Glazier and one day he put out a call for extras in a music video he was shooting in Toronto. I accepted and ended up playing a street fighting bum in a rap video. It was a completely exhausting experience but totally worth it. I had a blast. Here's the video. You can find me at 1:24-1:40 with a close up around 1:26

So those of you who know me well know that I take dares, so you'd think that this would be one that come out of a night of drinking and oneupmanship between university buddies. Well, you'd be wrong. I simply saw it on a menu at an Asian restaurant in Toronto one day when I was out and decided I'd try it. Blech. Very rubbery. Not my favourite.

I attended summer camp for a decade, including one summer when I was 16 and spent a month as a councillor in training. Having been adept at sailing and canoeing it seemed logical that I'd try to advance far enough that I could instruct kids the next summer so I completed my basic instruction levels in both disciplines as well as my Bronze Cross swimming.

The month of July 1990 was spent at summer camp as a councillor in training. I was 16 and enjoying every minute. Hanging out with some of the older kids, councillors and instructors, was fun and the last week of camp I spent a lot of time with them (against camp rules). After pulling two all nighters it just seemed like fun to see how long I could go. I stayed at camp with a couple fellow trainees to work the kitchen for the little tyke junior camp weekend and remember sleeping for a long, long time in the hours after most people left and the new campers and staff arrived. For those wondering, yes, you do start to see strange things and become a bit loopy after about 80 hours.

There's a local financial institution that does spots on small business customers of theirs and they happened to do one on a friend of mine who has a catering business in town. Just so happens that this friend and I sing together in a band. They wanted footage of my friend with her friends singing so we did a few takes at a local coffee shop. It was fun!

My dad got me a job working at a school at Jane & Keele in Toronto. My dad thought it would be a good experience instead of working as a bus boy or at the video store. I helped a summer school teacher work on the English skills of new immigrants. Most of the kids had behavioural problems due to lack of supervision or siblings in local gangs. It was challenging, but also very rewarding. I taught a little Vietnamese boy to count to ten. The look on his face when he finally got it right was priceless.

At the time the Jane/Finch Corridor was the meanest, most dangerous neighbourhood in the city. I rode the bus five days a week into this part of town and back every afternoon. As my dad had hoped, it was a learning experience. Aside from helping kids learn English I got to practice keeping quiet on the bus and walking with my eyes down on the sidewalk.

I don't think I have enough time to give you the stories behind each one of these, so I'll just tell you what I was doing when each one happened: toe beside the big one on the left foot (at summer camp, fell and twisted it between two rocks), left foot, left ankle, left tibia (these three all at once falling down a flight of stairs on Christmas Eve), left arm radius AND ulna (fell off my bike), left pinky (hockey) left middle finger (caught in a door), several ribs (hockey and squash collision with a wall), right ankle (hit with a hockey puck, also a stress fracture while running), right wrist (pushed into a door), right pinky finger (hockey), nose (ran into a door, door frame, and tree - three separate occasions), head (fell off a TV when I was 2), and brain (three concussions from hockey, plus one tubing (on water), plus "minor" head injuries snowboarding).

I was in Dryden Ontario picking up a friend from his house to bring him back to school. My girlfriend and I figured since we were almost in Manitoba anyway that we'd drive to Winnipeg. Along the highway we passed a sign indicating that we were at the longitudinal centre of Canada.

This one is hard to explain. I just got it. For some reason, the whole introduction to calculus just made sense. I had previously received the highest mark in mathematics in 10th grade, so it wasn't a total surprise I guess. By the time 3rd year university rolled around though, it was a big shocker. Triple integrals in spherical coordinates and nabla operators had me thoroughly confused. I made it out though, but just barely and with a new appreciation for folks who did math for a living.

In my 3rd year Mechanics class, after we had established how to work in spherical coordinates and utilize calculus to solve "heavenly body" equations, our professor set aside the time to walk us through the mathematical proofs that Newton spent years figuring out. I ended up with a fairly decent grade in that class, somewhat proving to myself that I understood the fundamentals and lessening the sting of my Calc3 debacle.

6 comments:

WOW. My head spins reading your accomplishments and injuries! Your poor mother). You seem to have led such a full life. I can't even imagine the awesome you'll go on to achieve. I'm envious. Although, I did come face to face with a black panther in the wild when I was 9. Not many people can say they've lived through that I hope.

Thanks for this post. The amazing facts within and the time you spent providing links and vids is awesome. I can't wait to get home and watch them all. Well done and congrats on your successful accomplishments. Teaching the Vietnamese boy to count to ten made me smile HUGE. Everything else, I'm in awe of. Great post.

Yes, for a panther not in captivity, he was beautiful with a red tint to his fur. He saw me before I saw him and we stood there, staring at each other for a couple minutes. Then he blinked like he was bored, turned and slinked off into the woods.

Haven't gotten to watch everything yet (oven fire kept me kinda busy last night) but I know I'll have more comments and questions for you after I do. Again, it was a great post. I really enjoyed it.

I am addicted to blog comments, so please support my habit and leave me one. I appreciate you taking the time to read and share your thoughts and I will always reply. If for some reason Blogger is giving you grief and you can't leave a comment you can always reach me at potatochipmath [at] gmail [dot] com